TIMES ONLINE: Islamist extremist Anjem Choudary has been caught on tape urging an audience to raise funds for the 'mujaheddin'
OUTWARDLY he presents an innocuous image as a be-spectacled father of three trained in the law. But Anjem Choudary is now considered by many politicians and religious leaders as the most dangerous Islamist extremist in Britain.
He has previously made no secret of his demands that the country be placed under sharia - Islamic law. This would mean all women would have to wear veils, adulterers would be stoned to death and drunks whipped in public.
Last Tuesday Choudary and his small but obsessive group of followers turned their bile on British troops parading through Luton after their return from service in Iraq.
While his placard-waving “students” fomented a near-riot by branding the men and women of the Royal Anglian Regiment as “butchers” and “cowards”, Choudary, who was not present, did not shrink from fanning the flames of outrage.
Within hours of the ugly confrontation in Luton, he had posted a message on the Islam4UK website, calling the troops “pompous” and accusing them of murdering women and children in Iraq.
He later gave a glimpse of his vision of Britain in a newspaper interview, calling for the “black flag of Allah” to be raised over Downing Street.
In the absence of his former guru, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed - a firebrand preacher banned from Britain - and with Abu Hamza, the hook-handed cleric of Finsbury Park mosque, in jail, Choudary appears to have installed himself as the country’s most vocal Islamist.
He has always been at pains to keep his public proselytising within the boundaries of British law.
Now Choudary, 41, a founder member of the British wing of Al-Muhajiroun, an extremist group, has been caught on tape urging an audience to raise funds for the “mujaheddin” - a phrase usually associated with insurgents in Iraq and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, it is an offence to “invite another to provide money or other property” for the purposes of terrorism. Offenders risk a prison sentence of up to 14 years. >>> Abul Taher and Daniel Foggo | Sunday, March 15, 2009
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Hate Cleric Leads Jihad Cash Appeal
Anjem Choudary, who led protests against returning British troops, has urged his followers to send money to 'mujaheddin'
AN Islamic cleric, whose supporters led a hate-filled protest against British troops returning from Iraq, has urged his followers to give cash to front-line mujaheddin fighters.
A recording has emerged of Anjem Choudary, a self-styled sharia judge and former leader of the banned group Al-Muhajiroun, telling his followers to stop spending their money on their families and divert it to Muslim soldiers waging jihad, or holy war.
There were demands for Choudary to be investigated by police. He has previously called for British women to be forced to wear burqas and for adulterers to be killed. Several radical preachers have previously been jailed for urging British Muslims to give money to Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in Iraq.
The emergence of the tape coincided with the death yesterday of a British soldier in Afghanistan, the 150th to die there since 2001. The soldier of the 2nd battalion, Royal Welsh regiment, was on foot patrol. >>> Abul Taher and Daniel Foggo | Sunday, March 15, 2009
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